Publication: Reviews of National Policies for Education : Tertiary Education in Chile
Date
2009-12
ISSN
Published
2009-12
Author(s)
Mogollón, Maria Paulina
Crawford, Michael
Abstract
Tertiary education in Chile has been
transformed radically over the past 20 years. As recently as
1990, tertiary education was an elite system centered on a
handful of traditional universities which served a small
number of well-prepared students. Today the system is
diverse and dynamic, with over 6,000 programs of study
offered by more than 200 institutions. More than 800,000
students are now enrolled, representing over 40 percent of
the age cohort. In making this transition, the country has
relied on significant development of private tertiary
education and the introduction of substantial cost-sharing
(tuition and fees) in the entire system. It has coupled this
with a strong licensing and quality assurance system, and,
increasingly, an innovative and robust student aid system.
The aforementioned changes have been a key to Chile's
drive for increased competitiveness over the last two
decades, and have been consistent with efforts to gain
permanent membership in the Organization of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). The World Bank assisted
the Government of Chile during much of this period, offering
both its technical capacity and resources through several
loans for human capital development and numerous analytical
and knowledge-sharing activities. In 2008, the World Bank
and the OECD collaborated to provide a broad assessment of
the sub-sector through a comprehensive review of
Chile's national policies for tertiary education. The
review, tertiary education in Chile, analyzes the
achievements of the last decades and outlines the challenges
Chile faces in its quest to provide its citizens with a high
quality tertiary education system. This note summarizes the
main findings and recommendations of the book.
Citation
“Mogollón, Maria Paulina; Crawford, Michael. 2009. Reviews of National Policies for Education : Tertiary Education in Chile. en breve; No. 151. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/4aefc83d-eca6-5b45-9819-8dd680682bae License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”